That was my initial reaction to seeing The Hangover: Part II, the highly anticipated sequel to one of the better comedy flicks in recent memory. Whatever. Thanks to the vast success of the first Hangover movie, the sequel was pretty much immediately announced by noted raunchy filmmaker, Todd Phillips. Soon the trailers and posters and other hype machines began coming around. The Wolfpack was returning to the big screen, and soon enough every bro and ho was updating their Facebook status with eager anticipation of the new movie.

I give most of the blame for this ridiculous over-hype machine to the young people of Generation Y, AKA the Bros Icing Bros Generation (we deserve it. We’re the worst). The common motif with the Bros Icing Bros Generation is to embrace only a choice few pieces of entertainment and run with the damn things for as long as they exist, no matter how obviously stupid they eventually boil down to. The short list of prime Bros Icing Bros entertainment is relatively short, but it more than answers everything you need to know about how truly committed people can be once the general population decides something deserves to be called the best thing since sliced bread.

Twilight

The Hangover

Glee

Jersey Shore

That’s just the few things that I can come up with off the top of my head, but the pattern is already well-defined. Granted, the first Hangover movie was very funny, but most of that praise came from the fact that it took some relatively unknown actors, threw them into an inappropriate movie, and then kept on giving the audience new lewd shit to gasp and laugh about. It was fresh, but the freshness pretty much died as soon as the sequel was announced. It was only a matter of time before that became clear to a lot of snooty film critics.

Should two three (three and a half?) months really seem like a long time?

The last time this simple little blog had a new post was two months ago, but it seems so much longer than that. This may have something to do with the fact that my last post, a shitty attempt at live-blogging what turned out to be an awful Oscars show, was posted in late February. As time went by, and as I tried and tried to think of things to write, I couldn’t come up with anything, and simple procrastination turned into a hiatus, and I was starting to feel like the site was finally done for.

But as I left The Media Experiment for dead, I started discovering some great new pieces of pop culture geekery. Since February, I’ve experienced the joys of Breaking Bad and Community. I’ve found some great new bands to listen to, especially this cool little group from Canada called Meligrove Band. I’ve played awesome games like Borderlands, I’ve read superb books like Olympos, and I’ve even found the time to do other meaningless things, like graduate from high school and officially decide on going to the University of Missouri, starting this fall.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that while silly little blogs will stop moving, the rest of the world doesn’t. And as the world doesn’t stop, neither does entertainment. So really, there is no reason to actually kill this blog, even if a break from covering the whole wide world of time-wasting was worth it.

So, with all of that behind us, it’s time for the folks here at TME to get back to what we do best, and that’s providing amateur analysis and praise/criticism/irrational hatred to the world of media entertainment.

I speak for Jimmy, Emily, Trevor, and Jackie when I say: we’re back (at least for the summer), and it feels very good.

So apparently tonight is the Oscars, and for whatever reason I see fit, I guess I will liveblog the damn thing. After watching two best picture nominees yesterday (Winter’s Bone and The King’s Speech), all I’ve able to think about is the Christopher Guest movie For Your Consideration (great movie, by the way). Why? Because so many Oscar films just have this air of snottiness and self-importance that just makes me sick sometimes. It just feels like people will only make movies to try to rake in awards based on merits such as “dysfunction, crying, over-the-top emotions” and so on. Maybe I just hate seeing other people succeed, but then again, Transformers 2 is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, so I guess it’s not just the awards show films. The point is, I see movies as something to entertain first, and then inspire second, and not the other way around. I’d be totally fine if a movie about Gandhi fudged things and made him a bodybuilder with a Gatling gun.

Anyways, here are the Best Picture films I have seen: Toy Story 3, Winter’s Bone, Inception, The King’s Speech, and True Grit. Here’s how I’d rank them and why…

5. Winter’s Bone: The intrigue of the story kept me interested for the majority of the movie, but damn, the ending was about as uneventful and unexciting as one could possibly expect. Weeee, they all do meth! Weeee, they’re ignorant hicks with anger issues! Weeeee, the lead lady is stuck in a horrible life at the beginning of the film and the end of it too! Jennifer Lawrence did a fine acting job, but if this wins Best Picture, I’m not going to be pleased.

4. Inception: Everyone wants to talk about “how overrated” Inception is, simply because of all the hype that came with Chris Nolan and the fact that it was a high-grossing summer movie. That said, it still had an interesting story and some really cool visuals that made me enjoy it overall. Let’s be honest here: not many people outside of Nolan could make something like dream inception seem plausible. This shouldn’t win BP, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad movie. Also, let’s not forget a certain blue alien film that was nominated for Best Picture last year…..

3. Toy Story 3: It is near impossible to not like this movie, but it’s in the minority simply because it’s a kid’s film. I would totally get behind this winning Best Picture though.

2. The King’s Speech: The two lead actors stole the show on this one, and made this movie go from 2 stars to 3.5 stars for me. Geoffry Rush was simply fantastic as the speech therapist; if he doesn’t win Best Supporting Actor, I will never look at this already “whatever” award again.

1. True Grit: That’s right, I’m a Coen Bros. homer, so sue me. Even with this movie, a movie that breaks a lot of artsy guy code (it’s a remake of an adaptation of a book, for one thing), but True Grit was the best Oscar movie I saw all year (my favorite movie overall of last year is still Kick Ass). The presentation, the acting (everybody was great in their respective roles), the feel; it felt like I was living in a snarky, slightly humorous Western world. This movie won’t win Best Picture, but it deserves to get at least Best Actor, and I’d root for Best Actress too.

And yes, I know my opinions are skewed since I didn’t see the likes of the other five movies, although you won’t get me to ever see The Kids Are Alright.

Anyways, catch up with me after the jump when the awards show starts. There’ll plenty of making fun of snooty celebrities after the jump, when the Oscars actually start. See you then!

I saw the description “Lost-meets-The Walking Dead and suddenly became way more interested.

And then I watched the trailer…

Hoe. Lee. Shit.

Say it with me now: Hoe. Lee. Shit.

I know that trailers of any sort shouldn’t be used to judge an unreleased game or movie, but damn. I think it’s going to be pretty hard for me to not pick up a copy of this when the game comes out, especially if the game is story driven ala World War Z.

What’s more is that this is coming off of the trailer for the decade-late game Duke Nukem Forever, which had an equally entertaining trailer, albeit far less serious. What are we coming to in this world where people are making video game trailers amazingly artistic? In short, I have to play this game now.

[Sidenote: As far as movie trailers go so far this year, Battle: Los Angelesdefinitely takes the cake. Sure, there’s a good chance it can still be a lackluster movie, but it’s certainly not straightforwardly cheesy like Skyline.]

We here at The Media Experiment are not afraid to shout to the world our strange attractions to people of the same sex (Ok, maybe that’s just me, but still (I’m not gay (ladies))) and with Valentine’s Day tomorrow, it’s high time to have our second installment of Media Man Crush! This month’s installment focuses on an actor that has been in almost every type of movie imaginable. From sci-fi’s to westerns, comedies to dramas, Mr. Tudyk is one of those guys that isn’t necessarily a household name (unless you’re a Firefly/ Serenity super fan), but is instantly recognizable. Add to that his stunning good looks and general awesomeness, and you’ve got a guy that you can be attracted to without being gay. In fact, if you actually are not attracted to Alan Tudyk, you might be considered gay by 95% of the male population. Fact.

Yeah, just goes to show that you can take just about anything educational, give it a goofy narrator (Damn Nature, You Scary!), and turn it into something entertaining. Call me old fashioned or easy to entertain, but I was pretty much rolling for the entirety of this gayer rendition of the Honey Badger segment. Maybe it gets a little old since 70% of the video is “Oh my God, he’s eating a snake!”, but I’ll give it a pass. This is the best educational video spoof since What Really Happened to Rusty, the Narcoleptic Dachshund.

Honestly, I’m not even sure if this commercial was part of yesterday’s Super Bowl commercials. I missed the first quarter or so of the game on television, and all I know is that this was a finalist for Doritos’ annual SB commercial competition. It sounds like the winner was the creepy finger sucking commercial, so I’m giving an extra shout-out to the birthday commercial, which is equal parts silly and inappropriate. Let’s break it down:

Boring old dad looks eerily similar to Maps and Atlases singer Dave Davison. He also is goofy and acts like a silly little kid.

He suddenly pulls a dick move on his “son” (that kid looks nothing like the parents) and blows out the candles for a box of Doritos.